Vado SL 4.0 12-Speed Conversion

[Stefan Mikes]

so how could the derailleur be involved? Please explain.

A bent derailleur hanger may make the gearing indexed by one full gear towards the frame. Same with an ill-indexed derailleur. Once, the derailleur hanger was bent on my SL. The chain dropped from the rear cog and -- as the chain was moving -- the chain dropped from the chainring too and got entangled between the ring and the frame.

That very moment!

I did not have any luck when searching for a 104BCD/44t gear and had never heard of Garbaruk.

Did you click the link I provided? Do they sell to the U.S.? Garbaruk is better than Wolftooth!

 

[rochrunner]

Did you click the link I provided? Do they sell to the U.S.? Garbaruk is better than Wolftooth!

Yes, I can get it over here. Wolf Tooth no longer appears to make one that's compatible (104BCD only with a lot fewer teeth).

 

[Stefan Mikes]

You would be amazed with Garbaruk quality, materials, and precision!
Made by genius Ukrainian guys in a factory in Poland.

 

[rochrunner]

You would be amazed with Garbaruk quality, materials, and precision!
Made by genius Ukrainian guys in a factory in Poland.

The bike shop found the problem and it was something that I didn't know about. The HG freehub on the Onyx hubs have stainless steel "pins" that go into the freehub slots to prevent the cassette from biting into the alloy hub. These were not positioned correctly, causing the cassette gears to loosen up and move around. In addition (and this one is on me!) there was no spacer behind the cassette. (I'm turning 80yo in a couple weeks and finding more and more careless mistakes on my part when working on things that I have long been familiar with. )

So no need for a new chainring unless I decide to do the 12-speed upgrade and will have things taken apart anyway.

 

[Stefan Mikes]

Good to hear the issues have been identified! Many happy rides!

 

[Jeremy McCreary]

I'm turning 80yo in a couple weeks and finding more and more careless mistakes on my part when working on things that I have long been familiar with.

Just turned 78, and believe me, you're not alone in this. To date, the errors have generally been annoying and sometimes time-consuming but luckily not costly money-wise.

Trying to pay closer attention only seems to go so far, so the priority now is to fix the screw-ups before the missus notices.